Several youth groups, including those formed by students at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, have started to rally in different locations across the country in an effort to stress the importance of gun control. A group called Teens for Gun Reform, which was organized by students through Facebook staged [more]

The FBI has recently released the official FBI NICS Background Check data for January 2018 and it looks like the country's gun sales are continuing its steady decline. According to the recently published data, estimated firearms sales last month fell by 8 percent. Dealers across the country managed to process [more]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has reportedly sent a request for agents of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives to retrieve more than 4,000 firearms that were purchased last year. The guns to be confiscated are from owners who should have been prohibited from acquiring them in the [more]

The United States Air Force has announced that it has already launched an investigation to find out why the criminal records for Devin Patrick Kelly, the shooter who killed 26 church-goers in Sutherland Springs, weren't forwarded to the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System. According to application forms acquired [more]

Sutherland Springs, Texas - A lone gunman opened fire inside a church during service in a small town in Texas killing at least 26 people and injuring 20 others. The gunman was later identified as 26-year old Devin Patrick Kelley, a former member of the US Air Force. Kelley had [more]

Gun-related shooting incidents have historically caused sudden spikes in firearm sales. The latest incident in Las Vegas, which has been described to be one of the deadliest in the country's history, seems to follow the morbid trend as citizens flock to gun stores to stockpile firearms in case of a [more]

Flaws in FBI Background Check System Fail to Flag Purchases

Like many states, Maine depends on the FBI to conduct background checks of people who want to acquire firearms from the state’s federally licensed gun dealers.

And like many states, Maine is a slacker in supplying the records that the FBI depends on to run those checks.

That’s how Raymond Geisel got his guns, including a Glock Model 17 pistol and a semi-automatic version of the AK-47 assault rifle. Geisel had previously been committed to a psychiatric hospital in Bangor, which made him ineligible under federal law to buy or possess a gun. But because state officials had not supplied records of his commitment to the FBI, Geisel passed background checks without being flagged.

Eventually, the law caught up with Geisel. He was arrested in Miami in August 2008 for making threats against Barack Obama, who was campaigning in south Florida around the same time. Another gun that Geisel had acquired in Maine was subsequently recovered by federal agents in his hotel room, along with a combat-style hatchet, armor-piercing ammo and canisters of tear gas.

The data gap that Geisel exploited should have been closed by now. Four years ago, after the massacre at Virginia Tech exposed gaps in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), Congress and the Bush administration took decisive action to shore up the joint state-federal operation, which is supposed to keep guns away from the deranged and the dangerous.

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Tweet Several youth groups, including those formed by students at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, have started to rally in different locations across the country in an effort to stress the importance of gun control. A group called Teens for Gun Reform, which was organized by students through Facebook staged a “lie-in” rally outside […]

Tweet The FBI has recently released the official FBI NICS Background Check data for January 2018 and it looks like the country’s gun sales are continuing its steady decline. According to the recently published data, estimated firearms sales last month fell by 8 percent. Dealers across the country managed to process approximately 2,030,530 applications through […]

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